NI numbers hint migrant total could be far higher: 257,000 EU immigrants have arrived... but 630,000 want right to work! 

  • Some 55,000 Romanians and Bulgarians arrived in the UK last year 
  • However, 209,000 Bulgarians and Romanians got NI numbers last year
  • Migration Watch has described the difference as a  'huge discrepancy'
  • See more news on the migrant crisis at www.dailymail.co.uk/migrantcrisis 

A row erupted last night over the ‘huge discrepancy’ between official immigration statistics and the issuing of National Insurance numbers.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 55,000 Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants came to Britain in the year to last September. Of those, some 45,000 said they came to work.

However, an analysis of issues of National Insurance numbers – without which no one can work legally or claim benefits in the UK – paints an entirely different picture.

The Office of National Statistics said some 55,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants arrived in the UK in the year to last September, with 45,000 of these saying they wanted to work in the country 

The Office of National Statistics said some 55,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants arrived in the UK in the year to last September, with 45,000 of these saying they wanted to work in the country 

According to the Office of National Statistics, some 170,000 Romanian nationals applied for NI Numbers 

According to the Office of National Statistics, some 170,000 Romanian nationals applied for NI Numbers 

A total of 630,000 NI numbers were given to EU citizens in 2015, of whom 209,000 were Romanians or Bulgarians

This compares with an overall official net EU migration total of 257,000 – a gap Lord Green of the Migration Watch UK think-tank described as ‘a huge discrepancy.’

He added: ‘It is hard to believe that as many Europeans as this are arriving to work and then staying for less than a year. It is possible but it does seem unlikely.’

In 2014 – the first year that citizens of the two countries which joined the EU in 2007 had the right to work freely in Britain – 187,000 NI numbers were issued to them.

ONS officials explained at the time that the figure was high because many of the applicants had been in Britain already when they claimed their numbers.

There was no explanation from the ONS yesterday as to why numbers of applicants went up sharply last year. Some 170,000 Romanians applied for NI numbers, and 39,000 Bulgarians.

The growing scale of immigration from the two countries confounds the predictions of experts who said before 2014 that few would come, despite dramatically higher salaries for workers in Britain than in Eastern Europe.

The Romanian ambassador Dr Ion Jinga said just before the gates were opened to workers from the ‘EU2’ in January 2014 that Romanians coming to Britain would be ‘fewer than in the previous years.’

The ONS said figures from surveys and National Insurance number claims should not be compared.

It said the NI number figures ‘include short-term migrants and the figures are based on recorded registration date … so are not a direct measure of when a person migrated to the UK’.

Short-term migrants are those who stay in the country for less than a year. People counted as immigrants are those who say they intend to remain in Britain for more than a years. The Government does not publish statistics on NI numbers that are in use against those that are not. The number actually in use by people in employment or claiming benefits, which would give an indication of the real total of working immigrants, is held by HM Revenue and Customs.

The main survey used to measure immigration, the International Passenger Survey, proved inaccurate during the first phase of Eastern European immigration in the 2000s.

One reason for this was that survey reporters tracked immigrant numbers at main airports. Eastern European immigrants, however, were arriving on budget flights to airports such as Stansted and Robin Hood, near Doncaster, which were sketchily covered by the survey.

 

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